The Cold War lives on

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-120914.html



The Cold War lives on
By John Feffer
Sep 12, '14

~snip~

We never know the length of the wars that drag on around us. When peace improbably comes, we'd like to think that the treaties are permanent, that they'll turn former combatants into grumbling but harmless neighbors.

Wars, however, are like acid reflux - they keep recurring no matter how much Pepto-Bismol we chug. Perhaps the Vietnamese thought they'd finally won their independence when they delivered a stinging defeat to the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Perhaps the Afghans imagined that self-determination was theirs when the Soviet superpower withdrew in 1989 (or, for that matter, when the British withdrew in 1880). Wars defy our efforts to write their obituaries.

Indeed, viewed over the long term, war is the very oxygen that we breathe, while peace is but the brief interval when we hold our breath and hope for the best.

The world is currently in the midst of several long wars that don't have any clear endpoint. The battle over the boundaries of the Middle East, set into motion by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, continues to rage in Syria, Iraq, and Israel/Palestine. Conflicts over borders inside Africa, ignited by the collapse of colonialism, are still being fought in Congo, Sudan, and elsewhere around the continent. Then there's that great misnomer, the "war on terror," that stretches back before September 11 and will extend well into the future.